Bill Shorten, you left these workers worse off

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In the face of multiple claims to the contrary, Bill Shorten has said that when he used to be a union official, his deals always left workers better off. He guaranteed it. Is this statement true?

There are a few Shorten deals sitting on my desk and many more on the Fair Work website. Here is my analysis of just one.

An enterprise bargaining agreement was signed on January 22, 2001, by three men, including the now Opposition Leader. The EBA was made between the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the Australian Workers Union and the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Trust and the employees of the trust. Documents show the workforce fluctuated but there were up to 850 employees covered by the agreement.

The EBA passed the “no-disadvantage test” of the Australian ­Industrial Relations Commission on the basis of statutory declarations and submissions made by the unions and the employer, on the assurance that no employees would be worse off. Senior deputy president Anne Harrison ­approved the EBA.

These declarations and assurances were accepted by the commission, but the EBA, in my opinion, significantly disadvantages employees.

The short (31-page) EBA commenced on March 5, 2001. It ­removed all award conditions and entitlements from staff. Award ­entitlements were replaced with a basic set of conditions that provided cheap labour with extraordinary flexibility to the employer.

The EBA “recognises (a) That the ordinary hours of business for operating the Trust’s facilities are different from the normal hours of business applicable in most industries, as the Trust’s venues will typically operate at weekends and nights on weekdays” and “(b) In the spirit of co-operation the Trust and the employees have taken into consideration the competitive ­nature of the industry.”

The trust operates Melbourne sports facilities, including but not limited to Olympic Park, Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre, Melbourne Park, Rod Laver Arena, Vodafone Area, parklands and various function ­facilities. In addition, the trust was able to use this EBA when it contracted to other facilities to provide operator/event management services.

Permanent staff — cleaners and workers engaged in kitchen duties — were paid a flat rate of $14.70 an hour, while ushers, carpark attendants, groundskeepers, ticket sellers, reception workers and other staff were paid a flat rate of $16.59 an hour.

Employees were required, under rosters with no mandated notice period, to work any time, on any day, at any venue that the trust nominated. Work was required 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ­including on public holidays, ­although employees were directed to work between 1am and 6am “generally only when there is a need to ensure that the next event can meet its schedule or when emergency maintenance work is required”.

Work on all weekends and public holidays was mandatory if ­required, at ordinary rates of pay, with no loadings or penalties. However, work on Christmas Day and Good Friday, again with no loadings or penalties, was optional for employees and the EBA says “a decision to not work will not prejudice their employment”.

Employees were required to work up to 12 hours a shift unless it was an “emergency”, whereby under “mutual agreement” they could work longer. These shift lengths excluded meal breaks, which were all unpaid, and meal breaks could be forfeited by ­“mutual agreement”. Employees could be rostered to work 13 days straight, after which time they must have a break of one day or more. Workers were guaranteed four days off in a 28-day period.

Employees were required, without notice, to undertake ­duties across other work streams, including those lower than their own. This means a supervisor could be directed to clean toilets or stack chairs.

The hourly rates of pay, all flat rates, included “a loading for hours worked in excess of 12 hours per day, for hours in excess of 38 hours per week, 76 per fortnight or 152 per 28-day period, as well as hours worked on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Wages for full-time employees include a loading of 1.3 per cent in lieu of payment of a 17.5 per cent annual leave loading” and “all penalty payments except” for a loading of 25 per cent (time and a quarter) for work between “1am and 6am for hours worked only during that ­period”.

Workers were required to wait for their pay cheques, as they were paid once a fortnight on a Wednesday, for all work undertaken up to the previous Sunday. If workers had worked additional hours in one fortnight, they were forced to wait for the second fortnightly payday in the month for payment on those hours, as the first payday of the month was only ever for standard hours (76 for full-time staff and 38 for part-timers). While the trust had an “intention” to supply car parking at no charge, to provide “accessibility and to ­encourage employees to be punctual and well groomed”, this could not be relied upon and so workers could “pre-purchase” a car park “at an agreed fee of $5.50 per shift”. However, if the event had “state or national significance or extraordinary circumstances” then no car parking would be available, and the trust bore no liability for any costs incurred to the worker.

Workers who worked between 1am and 6am and commenced work before 5am were given a breakfast meal or paid a meal ­allowance of $8.25. If a uniform was required, a uniform allowance of $1.60 per day worked was ­payable.

Full-time employees were given 25 annual leave days a year, but each day was only deemed to be 7.6 hours. Ten days of sick leave (again based on 7.6-hour days) were available per year but only after 12 weeks of employment.

In a redundancy situation, ­depending on the length of service and the worker’s age, up to five weeks’ notice would be provided, however no redundancy severance pay at all would be payable, unless “government policy” said otherwise.

The following questions were sent to Shorten’s office:

Can you guarantee that this EBA did not leave any workers worse off?

If not, why was it recomm­ended to workers?

Did the AWU have an agreement with the trust to ensure workers became members of the AWU?

Did the AWU have any financial transaction with the trust ­before, during or after the life of the EBA?

Did Shorten have any financial transaction or receive any hosp­itality or consideration from the employer, before, during or after the life of the EBA?

A spokesman for Shorten ­replied last night: “Vested interests and people with old scores to settle will make all sorts of baseless claims to try to create stories where there are none. As Mr Shorten has said, he will not be further responding to matters before the royal commission until he is able to appear.”

The Melbourne and Olympic Parks Trust EBA has been passed on to the Heydon royal commission.

Shorten and his colleagues say those questioning his past deals are unfairly smearing him as part of a political witch-hunt. They also say that bad EBAs sometimes happen, and there is nothing wrong with employers and employees making their own deals.

However, the AWU has had a terrible reputation for decades. Now plenty of hard evidence is emerging to support that reputation. Bad EBAs do not just happen, and when a union receives money from an employer at the same time a really bad EBA is in place, it doesn’t pass the sniff test. As to employers and employees making their own deals, if only the employees were involved or had knowledge of these deals, that excuse might wash. What we see instead is that employers and unions make their own deals behind the employees’ backs. It is high time people started making a distinction between the rights of workers and the rights of union officials. They are two very different things.

So, was Shorten a well-meaning but inept union official, accidentally doing hopeless EBAs that led to significant losses for workers, or was he schmoozing it with the bosses, deliberately doing ­lucrative deals to benefit his union, or himself? Or was it something else? All that can be examined when Bill Shorten fronts the commission.

And if people in the Labor Party continue to defend deals like the one above, and attack anyone who questions them, then what does that say about their integrity and purpose?